Short of breath, Maia rolled open the sliding door as rows of towering kilns and brick ovens grew like termite mounds around the train, enveloping it in an aroma of glazed, baked earth. "Welcome to Clay Town, hub of Argil County," Tizbe sang with false enthusiasm. For a while, everything was red or dun-colored. Stacks and crates of ceramics swam past in a blur.

Abruptly, the aromatic kiln district gave way to residences, row after row of petite houses. Here in Long Valley, important matriarchies built their citadels near their fields or pastures, leaving towns to small homesteads, sometimes derisively called microholds. From the decelerating train, Maia watched a woman stroll by, holding the hand of a little girl who was obviously her clone-daughter. Half the population of the valley apparently lived this way — single women, winter-born but living varlike existences, with jobs that barely paid the bills and let them raise one winter child, exactly the way their mothers had, and grandmothers, and so on. One identical next-self to inherit and carry on. A thin but continuing chain.

It seemed a simpler, less presumptuous sort of immortality than the binge-or-bust cycles of great houses. You could do worse, Maia thought. In fact, there seemed something terribly sweet and intimate about the solitary mother, walking alone with her child. Ever since her own grand dreams shattered, Maia had begun thinking in more modest terms. The Musseli were beneficent toward their employees, treating several score singleton women almost like full members of their commune. Perhaps, if she worked hard at this job, Maia might win a long-term contract. Then, after saving up to build a house. . . .

Even after all that, there remained the problem of men. Or a man. You had to start off with a winter birth. It was rare to be able to conceive any other time of year, till you'd had a clone. But getting pregnant in winter wasn't as simple as going into the street and calling, "Hey, you!"

Well, don't think of that now. Take care of things one step at a time.

The train slowed into the Clay Town railyard with a hiss and squeal. Passengers began alighting. From two cars back came bumping sounds as men and lugars wasted no time hauling heavy farm machinery off a flatbed car. Nearer at hand, Maia saw the local Musseli freightmistress approach, clipboard in hand, striding ahead of a towering lugar laden with packages. Smile, Maia told herself. Try not to act like you're only five.

"Is this all of it?" the woman snapped, pointing to the pile by the door.

"Yes, madam. That's all."

As Maia handed over the bills of lading, Tizbe sidled alongside, muttering "Excuse me" in a low voice. The young blonde squeezed past carrying her travel bag. "Think I'll go have a look around," she drawled casually.

Maia called after her. "It's only a forty-minute stop! Don't get los—" She cut off as Tizbe turned a corner and vanished from sight.

"If it's convenient for you, right now?"

Maia jerked back to face the freightmistress. Her face flushed. "Sorry, madam. I'm ready when you are." Bending over the ledger, while carefully cross-checking the packages, Maia chided herself for worrying about a stupid hitchhiker.

She's just another silly var. None of my concern. Maia, you've got to try thinking more like Leie.

Leie certainly wouldn't have bothered. Leie would have said "good riddance."

But with the freightmistress grudgingly satisfied, and ten minutes to go before departure, Maia went looking for her errant assistant. She had reached the far end of the platform, with no sign yet of the irritating blonde, when a whistle blew some distance beyond the kiln district — another train approaching the station.

A young man could be seen holding a lever that would magnetically transfer the oncoming locomotive to one of three sets of rails. Several young women stood nearby, giggling, perched on a wooden walkway in front of a tall house with red curtains. As she neared, Maia saw two of them open their blouses and lean over the youth, shaking their well-proportioned torsos. His color, already flushed, grew redder by the minute. Maia wondered why.

"Not now!" He muttered at the women. "Go back inside an' wait a minute!"

The young man was trying to concentrate on the approaching train, still half a kilometer away, its flywheels squealing as it began to brake. The young women seemed to relish the effect they were having. One pointed in glee, causing the others to laugh uproariously. The youth's taut trousers barely concealed a stiffening bulge. He looked up, saw Maia watching, and turned away with an embarrassed moan. This only brought more gales of hilarity from the local women.

"Hey, Garn," one shouted. "You sure yer holdin' the right stick?"

"Go 'way!" he shouted hoarsely, trying to look over his shoulder at the approaching train. Across the poor fellow's brow emerged a line of perspiration.

"Aw come on," another topless var crooned, jiggling at him. "Want another taste?" She proffered a clear bottle. Instead of liquid, it brimmed with a fine, bluish, iridescent powder. One corner of the boy's mouth bore a similar stain.

"What's goin' on here!"

Everyone turned toward the nearby red-curtained house. At the doorway stood a burly older man and — Tizbe!

But not the Tizbe she knew. Maia blinked. Her instant impression was that the var hitchhiker had, in just twenty minutes, changed her clothes, dyed her hair, and gained ten years!

Lysos, Maia thought, realizing how she'd been had. Leie and I planned to travel about, pretending we were clones. I never expected to see the trick pulled in reverse!

"These frills distractin' you, Garn?" the big man asked, wiping his lips with the back of one hand. Shaking his head vigorously, the youth replied. "N-no, Jacko, they just—"

"Lennie, Rose, get your iced-up perfs inside!" cursed the woman who looked like Tizbe. "No one's supposed to see that stuff, let alone get free samples!"

"Aw, Mirri, we were just testin'—" one girl whined, dodging a slap. The bottle was snatched out of her hand and she ran for the house.

So, Maia confirmed. Tizbe's no var. And her type gets meaner with age.

With a cold eye, the older woman turned and glared at Maia. "Who the vrilly hell are you?"

Maia blinked. "Ah . . . nobody."

"Then take off, Nobody. You haven't seen—"

"Garn!" the big man shouted. The youth below, confused by both commotion and his hormones, had forgotten the oncoming train and begun leaning on the lever, perhaps to spare his painful tumescence. There came a deep, electric hum and click. In dismay, he pushed the lever the other way, and shoved too far. Two loud, grinding clicks. He yanked back. .

A shrill toot filled the air as an alarmed engineer threw his emergency brakes, watching helplessly as momentum carried the oncoming locomotive along slick, invisible magnetic fields onto a track already occupied by another train.

The boy dove under the platform. Everyone else ran.

Maia knew now why her assistant baggage handler had looked familiar.

Past the crowd that gathered to gawk at the damage, Maia saw once more the woman she had mistaken for the hitchhiker, conversing intently with the real Tizbe. One or both had dyed her hair, but side by side it was obvious. They wore older and younger versions of the same face.

And now Maia recalled where she'd seen that visage before. Several sisters of their clan had been lounging at a cafe on the main square in Lanargh, outside another house equipped with plush curtains. Looking a second time, Maia saw the same emblem above the building overlooking the tracks — a grinning bull, grasping in its jaws a ringing bell.

Most towns possessed houses of ease — enterprises catering to human cravings, especially those of deep winter and high summer. "Escape valves," Savant Judeth had called them. "Bordellos," said Savant Claire, with finality that forbade even asking what the latter word meant.